yes i did. from what i have read, seoncheol taught that yes people did climb up the bhumis etc. but added that nothing short of complete buddhahood was any kind of enlightenment.

Astus wrote:it is possible to work only with one or the other, or create a hierarchical structure of them. Also, views emphasising a narrow path are usually more rhetoric than practical

i don't follow.... from a merely analytic point of view, if even those that teach that there is no path don't practice as if there were none, then they are working with both.

more generally, the rhetoric of there being no path i thought was found in all chan. and if it is rhetoric for those that teach the most stringent sudden enlightenment [that's what we're talking about - right] then how can they be differentiated from the other camp. or, even, why would it be necessary to work with only one approach and not the other?

i may have lost the thread of what i was trying to say a bit there >_< i guess i was being over rhetorical

LastLegend wrote:Buddhas don't distinguish or make distinctions. They only do so to address sentient beings' distinctions. There are different methods and teachings because sentient beings have different karma and therefore have different understandings, comparisons, and distinctions. That's why Buddhas address these differences with different methods such as Chan, Pure Land, Tantra, etc. But they are one in essence I believe once we understand the teachings.

hi,

i find the idea of the proscription on distinctions, an odd one. i probably believe that its truth [that is, quite what is on differentiation] is not really understandable to us unenlightened beings... whether or not it means that buddhas [!] no longer "make distinctions" in the sense that you and i understand that term, would then be a moot point. i find the proposition that buddhas no longer undergo any existential suffering, much more - cogent - i guess.

klqv wrote:i don't follow.... from a merely analytic point of view, if even those that teach that there is no path don't practice as if there were none, then they are working with both.

more generally, the rhetoric of there being no path i thought was found in all chan. and if it is rhetoric for those that teach the most stringent sudden enlightenment [that's what we're talking about - right] then how can they be differentiated from the other camp. or, even, why would it be necessary to work with only one approach and not the other?

OK, let me explain a bit of the distinctions.

Gradual path: doing different practices (e.g. six paramitas) that eventually result in liberation.Gradual enlightenment: different levels of enlightenment (e.g. 52 stages).Sudden enlightenment: direct realisation of buddhahood.Sudden path: immediate insight into buddha-mind without any further methods.

You can come up with any combination of the above four and find some school or teacher who advocated that. The Complete Enlightenment Sutra is a great example where the sequence goes from a subitist (sudden-ist) approach to a gradualist, each to match the different capacities.

1Myriad dharmas are only mind. Mind is unobtainable. What is there to seek?2If the Buddha-Nature is seen,there will be no seeing of a nature in any thing.3Neither cultivation nor seated meditation —this is the pure Chan of Tathagata.4With sudden enlightenment to Tathagata Chan,the six paramitas and myriad meansare complete within that essence.

Astus, i don't know how you expect those distinctions to answer my questions

Food_Eatah wrote:Are these questions really that important for chan? :/

no but then what is? practically nothing...

edit

There are two approaches regarding the status of Zen teachers. One is that there is a bodhisattva path one takes on, you can find this view in the teachings of Zongmi, Jinul and Shengyan. The other is to point out that concepts of bodhisattvas and buddhahood are just concepts, it is mistaken to take them too seriously and one's better be a man of no affairs.

this is what we were discussing.

i think there is something misleading here. yes, there being a path and there not being a path are dipolar [that's just semantics - though it is also shown if you divide up the teachings as you have]. but to say "it is possible to work only with one or the other" seems like you are already loading the dice in favour of one approach - whatever that would be.

i would imagine that all chan stresses both of the two poles to some extent. which is why i disagree that

There is no need to take them as distant extremes or opposites. But it should still be recognised that it is possible to work only with one or the other

i think i think the exact opposite... it might seem otherwise once hierarchies of subitism have been sketched out but i think all that does is try to reify a conceptual aporia [that there can't be both a path and not a path] into mutually exclusive schools of thought and then sprinkle some zen dust onto that so that the logical contradiction isn't why it's problematic... make sense??

Last edited by klqv on Tue Oct 25, 2011 2:13 pm, edited 2 times in total.

klqv wrote:i find the idea of the proscription on distinctions, an odd one. i probably believe that its truth [that is, quite what is on differentiation] is not really understandable to us unenlightened beings... whether or not it means that buddhas [!] no longer "make distinctions" in the sense that you and i understand that term, would then be a moot point. i find the proposition that buddhas no longer undergo any existential suffering, much more - cogent - i guess.

I don't think Buddhas use any consciousnesses especially 6th and 7th consciousnesses. 6th being the thinking and 7th being the attachment.

NAMO AMITABHANAM MO A DI DA PHAT (VIETNAMESE)NAMO AMITUOFO (CHINESE)Bodhidharma [my translation]―I come to the East to transmit this clear knowing mind without constructing any dharma―

klqv wrote:i find the idea of the proscription on distinctions, an odd one. i probably believe that its truth [that is, quite what is on differentiation] is not really understandable to us unenlightened beings... whether or not it means that buddhas [!] no longer "make distinctions" in the sense that you and i understand that term, would then be a moot point. i find the proposition that buddhas no longer undergo any existential suffering, much more - cogent - i guess.

I don't think Buddhas use any consciousnesses especially 6th and 7th consciousnesses. 6th being the thinking and 7th being the attachment.

Any consciousness by which one describing the Tathagata would describe him: That the Tathagata has abandoned, its root destroyed, made like a palmyra stump, deprived of the conditions of development, not destined for future arising

You must understand Buddhas' teachings are aiming at destroying attachment, and in this case to conceptualizations or dualities. And you are not achieving a status. Enlightenment cannot be understood through conceptualization, attachment to concepts, or dualities. Then where does one start? Well let's look at what we are attached to in everyday life. Like eating, sleeping, sex, wealth, fame, intelligence, enlightenment, etc. These are what we are attached to. If you don't start with these, you will be going in circle with philosophical discussion. "Emptiness" then becomes an object of attachment. "Emptiness" as in something we can grasp.

NAMO AMITABHANAM MO A DI DA PHAT (VIETNAMESE)NAMO AMITUOFO (CHINESE)Bodhidharma [my translation]―I come to the East to transmit this clear knowing mind without constructing any dharma―

I lined up those four options in an attempt to show that these are different approaches to practice. They are not really opposites but aspects one can bring up according to situation. There are different advances and drawbacks for each point, so it's better to see them all. It's very similar to the two truths teaching.

The gradualist views are true because there is hardly anyone who could understand the Dharma from just a few words, much less realise it immediately. The subitist views are also true because everybody has the ability to see the nature of mind right now and that buddha-mind needs neither perfecting nor manifesting. And there are students who like a systematic step by step approach, others like to focus only on the essential.

In the subitist way there is no path, no practice. Just being natural and ordinary. But usually this naturalness has to be practised for a while before it starts to actually become natural. This is practising not practising.

1Myriad dharmas are only mind. Mind is unobtainable. What is there to seek?2If the Buddha-Nature is seen,there will be no seeing of a nature in any thing.3Neither cultivation nor seated meditation —this is the pure Chan of Tathagata.4With sudden enlightenment to Tathagata Chan,the six paramitas and myriad meansare complete within that essence.

The 6th Patriarch Master Huieng's story actually showed that there is no difference btween Gradual/sudden. You suddenly awaken by gradually cultivating, until you have cultivated enough merit, virtue and wisdom to meet the right condition to awaken.

Even though Master Huieng's mind intially awakened from the words of the Diamond Sutra, he still had to cultivate by doing hard labour for 8 month prior to the 5th Patriarch expounding the Dharma to him. Then he had to cultivate 15 years in hiding to wait for the right conditions for him to teach.

Astus wrote:I lined up those four options in an attempt to show that these are different approaches to practice. They are not really opposites but aspects one can bring up according to situation. There are different advances and drawbacks for each point, so it's better to see them all. It's very similar to the two truths teaching.

The gradualist views are true because there is hardly anyone who could understand the Dharma from just a few words, much less realise it immediately. The subitist views are also true because everybody has the ability to see the nature of mind right now and that buddha-mind needs neither perfecting nor manifesting. And there are students who like a systematic step by step approach, others like to focus only on the essential.

In the subitist way there is no path, no practice. Just being natural and ordinary. But usually this naturalness has to be practised for a while before it starts to actually become natural. This is practising not practising.

sure. but are you saying that the idea of there being no path is never literal?

and i think i was trying to disagree with you just because you seemed to me to be saying

There are two approaches regarding the status of Zen teachers. One is that there is a bodhisattva path one takes on, you can find this view in the teachings of

that it is not the case that subitism and gradualness is found to some extent in every approach to zen.

all this is beside the point of the thread though...

zen teachers are enlightened to the buddha-mind in the exact same was as sakyamuni was. or to the same degree...

and if i'm right that even the most extreme subitism must involve some gradualness, then i think this is relevant to all zen and the question can't really be done away with - at least in any way i can think of! like the sutta i quoted above - you might say it's not helpful to ask such a question but it's not obvious why it might be that it's necessarily some kind of mistake in the sense of the question having no answer.

1Myriad dharmas are only mind. Mind is unobtainable. What is there to seek?2If the Buddha-Nature is seen,there will be no seeing of a nature in any thing.3Neither cultivation nor seated meditation —this is the pure Chan of Tathagata.4With sudden enlightenment to Tathagata Chan,the six paramitas and myriad meansare complete within that essence.

i'm reading a book on bhavaviveka. the translator says, after bhavaviveka mentions predictions about nagarjuna

A passage in the lankavatara sutra predicts that he will appear in the south in vidarbha, destroy the extremes of being and non being, teach the mahayana, attain the first stage of the bodhisattva path and enter the pure land

That is from a different version than those three that exist in Chinese as far as I know. Tibetans like this "foretold by XY sutra/tantra" thing.

1Myriad dharmas are only mind. Mind is unobtainable. What is there to seek?2If the Buddha-Nature is seen,there will be no seeing of a nature in any thing.3Neither cultivation nor seated meditation —this is the pure Chan of Tathagata.4With sudden enlightenment to Tathagata Chan,the six paramitas and myriad meansare complete within that essence.

i'm reading a book on bhavaviveka. the translator says, after bhavaviveka mentions predictions about nagarjuna

A passage in the lankavatara sutra predicts that he will appear in the south in vidarbha, destroy the extremes of being and non being, teach the mahayana, attain the first stage of the bodhisattva path and enter the pure land

how can that be ??

Astus wrote:That is from a different version than those three that exist in Chinese as far as I know. Tibetans like this "foretold by XY sutra/tantra" thing.

The Lankavatara sutra supposedly has this statement, and it is kept in a number of traditions, including the Chinese. But, IIRC, it doesn't actually mention "Nagarjuna", but "Naga-"... something else. Later tradition wanted to read this as saying "Nagarjuna", however.

"Even if you practice only for an hour a day with faith and inspiration, good qualities will steadily increase. Regular practice makes it easy to transform your mind. From seeing only relative truth, you will eventually reach a profound certainty in the meaning of absolute truth."Kyabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche.